


les filles de nuit

by daydreamz



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Stripping, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29238453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreamz/pseuds/daydreamz
Summary: The streets don't let nobody escape. They cling to you like some dark, gooey kind of gum. Choke you up, swallow you whole and spit you out when you're too old to dance in short skirts and lacy bras. Only then can you die.Or: Sooyoung dances, Irene watches her, Seulgi dreams, Seungwan doesn't anymore and Yerim can't remember anything but the pills and the drinks. They live in the nights, and they will probably die there, too.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Park Sooyoung | Joy, Bae Joohyun | Irene/Son Seungwan | Wendy, Kang Seulgi/Kim Yerim | Yeri, Kang Seulgi/Park Sooyoung | Joy, Kim Yerim | Yeri/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Kudos: 7





	les filles de nuit

**Les Filles de Nuit.**

**1.**

Once the night was her favourite time. She has vague memories of dancing across the pavement and sharing bottles of cheap supermarket wine with friends whose name she barely remembers now. There’s one image of a girl with bright, waving pink hair against a background of neon lights and stars, but she’s not sure if that is real or if she has dreamt it up.

Sooyoung pulls her coat a little tighter around her and checks her watch. She’s late again. It’s already five past.

Around her Seoul is dark yet alive. The streets are busy with loud teenagers, and women and men laughing in groups of three or four. The moon hangs perpetually in the sky and once this would’ve brought her comfort. She supposes that’s how it goes with everything. You only ever like the things you cannot have. Sooyoung has spent too many nights awake and out on the streets, to still enjoy them as much as she used to.

When she arrives, Matthew is waiting at the back door, cigarette hanging between his lips.

‘You’re late,’ he says. His arms are crossed and he’s leaning against the wall with a frown plastered onto his forehead.

‘I know,’ Sooyoung says, huffing. As if they both don’t know that she’s late. As if he isn’t standing there just because he was waiting for her. As if she isn’t late every night.

Matthew moves out of the way and holds the backdoor open for her. When she passes him he lays a hand on her shoulder and for a moment she shivers.

This is Matthew. For all his gigantic, muscly, dangerous look, she knows he wouldn’t ever hurt her. They have reached some kind of understanding, she and him. They’re both from the streets, they know how scary they can be after dark and they both knows what waits for them inside.

He’s maybe the closest Sooyoung has to someone who understands her, even if there are still things he won’t ever understand. (He’s a man after all, and for all the big talk made on television and in the newspaper, the streets are still a man’s world; Matthew gets paid double what she does and he doesn’t even have to take his shirt of.)

She knows all that but can’t repress the shiver anyways. It’s unvoluntary, really. All the men she has known, their hands all feel the same. Rough callouses scratching her skin, palms big and heavy on her skin, gripping, bruising. Matthew pulls his hand back and sends her an apologetic smile. She sends him back a plastic little smile that feels as fake as her handbag.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’

Sooyoung shrugs. ‘There are worse things to be,’ she says, trying not to look at the building on the other side of the road, where she knows the lights are a shade redder still. Where she knows the girls are sitting behind the glass with plastic smiles and even shorter skirts. Their mascara dripping down their cheeks and their lipstick so hypnotizingly red.

She quickly walks inside and slams the door shut without waiting for Matthew to come in. The last thing she wants is another man telling her what she needs. As if she doesn’t know this herself. Of course she knows there are worse things to do than this, but also better things. Of course, she knows. But she’d be stupid to think she could ever escape. The streets don’t let nobody escape. They cling to you like some dark gooey kind of gum, choke you up. Swallow you whole. Spit you out when you’re too old and too ugly to dance in short skirts and lacy bras. Only then you can die.

Inside the music is loud and the smoke heavy in the air. Even here in the backroom, far away from all the men with their fat cigars.

She’s late. All the other girls are already grouping together in front of the mirrors, painting their lips and cheeks bright reds and soft pinks. Making pretty curls in their hair and sharing jokes they know aren’t funny. As long as you keep giggling, no one will ever know. Always keep smiling, that’s rule number three.

Sooyoung chooses a skirt that is just short enough to not get her fired, and a cute little red top with cherries. It’s a pity the top will have to go so soon, she really likes it. She fastens her heels around her ankles and notices the soles are coming lose. She sighs and takes her wallet from her fake-gucci bag. Sixty thousand won left, and her rent is due next week. The shoes will have to wait.

She looks at her heels, at the tin gap between sole and shoe, the threads holding them barely together. ‘As long as the threads are still there,’ she whispers, and somehow it feels like she’s not talking about shoes anymore.

At four she’s got a set, but until then she’s just on waitress duty. It’s nice, she prefers easing in slowly, hates nights when she has to start on stage.

By the time she’s perched on a chair, coloring her lips some dark shade of red all the other girls are gone already. Sooyoung looks at the girl in the mirror and barely recognizes her. She tries smiling, but this only makes it worse, so she quickly stops. Trailing her fingers over her reflection, she whispers, ‘Joy, not Sooyoung’.

-

Tonight is slow. The men smoke their cigars and watch her with dark eyes and hungry smiles. They whisper to each other when she passes and she pretends not to hear the comment about her ass. Sooyoung brings them their wine and beers and cocktails and smiles prettily and says thank you when they shove their money underneath the waistband of her skirt. When their hands brush against the flesh of her thighs or stomach she closes her eyes and tries not to think about the stinging of a palm against her skin, does not think about hiding purple-yellow-blue spots with layer and layer of concealer.

It’s only when she’s leaning against the bar waiting for Jackson to finish a sex-on-the-beach, that she notices Irene. The woman is hiding in the back of the club, face hidden in the shadow. Sooyoung can’t really make out her expression, but she knows what it feels like to have Irene’s eyes glued onto her skin, so she shivers anyway.

‘What do you want?’ she asks when she presses herself into the booth next to Irene, even though they both know what she wants. Irene is only ever here for one thing. Sooyoung feels the cool of Irene’s thighs against hers, the silver of her belt pressing into her hip.

‘A glass of wine, please.’ She smiles but it’s a sad little smile that tells Sooyoung exactly what she already knew.

‘Red or white?’

Irene presses her lips against the spot right beneath her ear, whispers ‘red’, like she does every night she’s here.

Sooyoung wants to slip out, is already turning away, but Irene lays a hand on her thigh and looks at her with this pleading, hopeless expression that Sooyoung can never resist. ‘When do you finish?’ she asks.

Sooyoung looks at her, really looks at her. Irene’s face is still partly hidden, the red lights casting shadows on her eyes and mouth, but the worry lines in her forehead are still painstakingly obvious. The layer of wetness over her eyes, the little twitch of her mouth that betrays everything underneath.

‘Five,’ Sooyoung says. ‘You don’t have to wait.’

Irene nods, but they both know she will still be here at the end of the night, watching Sooyoung through half-lidded eyes. Five is too early for girls like them to be able to fall asleep.

-

At four she’s got her set. Tonight she chooses a song that’s more slow. A woman’s low, steady voice fills the room, and there’s something dark and unsettling about her tone. Sooyoung wonders if it’s possible to drown in a song, she closes her eyes and lets the words rise and rise until she’s choking on them.

Swinging her hips to the slow beat and trailing her fingertips across her chest, over her stomach, against her thighs, she tries not to look at all the men in suit following her fingers with their eyes, tries not to feel their hungry gazes glued to her skin. When her eyes meet Irene’s she sees the tears rolling down the other woman’s cheeks. After that she tries not to look anymore.

-

The night is already turning into morning, the sky a light grey-blue. It’s Sooyoung’s favourite colour. The streets are empty. At night they never are, but in the morning all the late-night partiers have gone to bed and only the people of the streets remain.

Irene lights both their cigarettes and watches their city through tired eyes. Sooyoung looks at the other woman. The tears are gone, Irene’s face is hard and cold again, jaw set and eyes emotionless.

She doesn’t tell Sooyoung about her night, but she doesn’t have to. Irene only comes here on nights when she finished a job. She has probably spent hours scrubbing all the blood off of her skin and clothes, but Sooyoung can still smell it on her. Down here Death smells like gunpowder and stale whiskey.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’

Irene takes the cigarette from between her lips and turns to look at her, eyebrows furrowed. Sooyoung isn’t sure if it’s anger or sadness that sets into her jaw, curls her lips downwards. ‘Do what?’

Sooyoung shrugs. They both know what they’re talking about, but it’s an unwritten rule to never talk about it. As long as they don’t mention it Sooyoung doesn’t take off her clothes in front of rich, old men and Irene doesn’t point guns at those same rich, old men.

‘There are worse things to be,’ Irene finally says, turning her eyes away again. Sooyoung can never decide if she likes or hates the heavy feeling of Irene’s eyes on her. Her guess is that it’s like some weird kind of drug, it’s not good for her but she can’t live without either.

‘Yeah, but there are better things to be, too,’ she whispers.

‘Joy,’ Irene warns her.

Sooyoung shivers. She’s not Joy. Not when she’s with Irene, never. She knows that she’s overstepping, but she can’t help it. Last week she had a dream where Irene was standing in her kitchen with a hole in between her eyes, the blood trailing down her cheek, crimson tears. People in Irene’s profession never die of old age, everyone knows that.

‘You’re smart. You could do some cashier work or maybe-’

‘Joy,’ Irene interrupts her, the anger flashing dangerously in her eyes. ‘I’m not taking job advice from a whore.’ Sooyoung doesn’t correct her. Sometimes she forgets the difference herself.

‘I’m sorry.’

Irene sighs and rubs her forehead with her left hand, the right still occupied with holding her cigarette. ‘It’s okay,’ she mumbles. ‘I’m sorry, too, but you know they’ll never let me go.’

She doesn’t specify who, but she doesn’t have to. Sooyoung knows it better than she wishes she knew. To live on the streets, is to die on the streets. People like them can stay here forever or choose the quick way out.

‘Enough of this,’ Irene says. She pushes her cigarette bud out against the wall behind her and smiles. ‘I came here to forget,’ she whispers.

-

Half an hour later, Sooyoung finds herself pressed into the mattress by the hips. Irene smiles up at her through dark lashes and kisses pretty bruises into her thighs. It’s not love, but when Sooyoung closes her eyes it’s easy to pretend.


End file.
